Camden (The Henchmen MC 18)

And I just... melted.

Everything within me turned to mush.

Of course, in that moment, the most ridiculously inappropriate thought crossed my mind, making a snorting laugh escape me without warning, my hands going up to half-cover my face when Cam looked over his shoulder at me, brows drawn together in a silent question.

"It's just... God, my mom was so wrong," I told him, folding upward to press my forehead into his shoulder. "Sex is totally important."

His body shook as a silent laugh moved through him, his head dipping down to press a kiss to the top of my head before finally getting up, walking out to the bathroom, giving me a glorious view of his perfect ass as he did so.

As for me, well, I fell back on the bed, one hand on my belly, the other on my chest, feeling the almost buzzy sensation of my body, the lightness in my chest. It wasn't until the muscles started to hurt that I realized I was smiling like an idiot.

I wasn't sure when was the last time I had smiled until it hurt.

Months, years, probably.

There was never much to smile about.

Happiness was a long-buried thing, rising up out of the dirt a little worse for wear, but no less resplendent, transcendent, all-consuming.

I was pretty sure I was still smiling when Camden eventually made his way back into the room, carrying coffee cups, still perfectly naked.

He flicked on the TV, pulled me to his side, kept an arm around me.

And we watched mindless basic television in bed for hours before he got up, brought back more Chinese food and his notepad. But we were both contented with each other, with silence.

When sleep finally pulled at us, Cam simply scooted down on the bed, pulling me up onto his chest, gently stroking through my hair until I finally drifted away.I wasn't one for nightmares. At least not often. Everyone had them now and again, I guess, and I had my share in my life. But they were always the out-there ones, the ones that made no sense, or spoke to some long-buried subconscious trauma from childhood.

Getting lost in school.

Getting up to do a school report and finding myself suddenly naked.

Not being able to find my car while walking around a really sketchy neighborhood.

Just abstract things, my mind working through its issues while I rested.

I had only maybe had two nightmares about Thomas in the past. Ones where he found me, and I woke up in a cold sweat right before he grabbed me.

This one though, this was different.

Scarier because I was somehow very conscious of it, but unable to wake up. Everything felt slow, the entire ordeal seeming like it went on for hours.

I was in the rental house in Cape May, happy, refreshed from a sex session with Cam. I had gone out to grab the makings for homemade donuts - something I didn't consciously know how to make - and was coming in the door, smiling, ready to tell Cam about the jelly varieties I had gotten, only to find him on the center of the living room floor, bright crimson pooling on the carpet, slippery under my feet, a knife plunged into his chest.

"Hey, pumpkin," Thomas' voice called, calm, hollow.

My head whipped up to find him leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping blood from his knife.

Then his gaze fell on mine, a slow, cold smile spreading on his lips.

"You thought you could run away from me and fuck him? No, pumpkin. I can't allow that at all."

He lunged.

The scream burst from my chest.It wasn't until I felt hands shaking me that I realized I had cried out in more than just my dream, my voice making me wince even as I came fully awake.

My gaze found Camden sitting off the side of the bed, eyes wide, jaw tight.

Alive.

This was not my finest moment by a long shot, but I went ahead and burst into tears, everything seeming to hit me at once. The never-ending cycle of fear with Thomas, the feeling of constant displacement, and mingled with all that, this blooming warmth in my chest with regard to Cam.

It was all just too much for my body to hold in at once.

It had to get out somewhere.

In tears, this time.

"I-i-it's o-o-okay," his voice murmured as I was crushed to his chest. "I-I g-g-got y-you."

Like the flinch what felt like a lifetime ago, it took an almost embarrassingly long time for me to realize what just happened. This time, so lost in my own overwhelming feelings that nothing seemed to permeate them for a whole minute or two.

But when they did, it was like a bomb had dropped in the room. In a metaphorical way, I guess one had.

I shocked back from Cam, my eyes feeling as though they were bulging, my mouth gaping.